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Meet the 16-year-old Canadian girl who took down Milo Yiannopoulos
From Vox, yesterday:
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/2/24/14715774/milo-yiannopoulos-cpac-pedophile-video-canada
The story of Milo Yiannopoulos’s fall from conservative grace ended when a conservative blog posted video footage of him making comments that seemed to rationalize pedophilia. But it started when a 16-year-old high school student in Canada decided Yiannopoulos was embraced much too closely by mainstream conservatives.
The teen was moved to dig up footage on Yiannopoulos when she heard that he’d been invited to speak at the highest profile gathering of conservatives each year in America, the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). She defines herself as “very socially liberal,” but leans right on economics and foreign policy. Yiannopoulos, who has built his personal brand on anti-Muslim, anti-feminism, and general bigotry, exemplifies the place where she doesn’t believe the conservative movement should go.
“I see Milo as this embodiment of the awfulness you see over the past few years with the general tilt of millennial conservatism,” said the teen. “It’s diverged from this traditional conservatism so much. You’ve seen it essentially become full of awfulness and all about attacking the left and not about actual principles. It has nothing to do with conservative ideology so much as it has with opposing the leftists, SJWs, and so on and so forth.”
Within days of his old statements coming to light, Yiannopoulos lost his spot at CPAC, his book deal, and his job at the ultra-conservative website Breitbart.
I am keeping the teen’s name and social media accounts out of the story because of her and her parents’ request to protect her safety, and will only refer to her as “Julia.” But we have confirmed her identity and her communications with the conservative blog that resurfaced the Yiannopoulos tape for a wide audience.
-snip-
Julia closely follows political news from her home in Canada, with a deep interest in American politics. She has been particularly alarmed by the recent rise of Yiannopoulos and others like him. So as soon as she heard Yiannopoulos would speak at CPAC, she was appalled.
Then an old moment popped in her head. She remembered hearing an obscure podcast, the Drunken Peasants, in which Yiannopoulos, responding to a video by YouTube pundit Kevin Logan, defended the idea of “13-year-olds” having sex with “older men,” arguing that child molestation provided a “sort of ‘coming of age’ relationship” for teenagers.
Her memory was right. She found the July 2016 clip.
She didn’t think she’d have much luck spreading the news herself with her small Twitter following, so she contacted a conservative outlet to get the story out. She figured a liberal outlet would have less credibility among CPAC followers.
She landed on the previously not-very-well-known conservative blog Reagan Battalion, which, after a bit of back and forth, tweeted out the video — leading not just to CPAC canceling Yiannopoulos’s speech, but to Simon & Schuster pulling his already controversial book deal and his resignation from Breitbart.
-snip-
The teen’s mom couldn’t have been more proud of her kid, initially contacting Vox because she said her daughter’s story deserves more attention. She told me that the Canadian family is “more libertarian than anything,” but they’re nonetheless “devastated to see that Orange Julius win.” And in particular, they’re dismayed by reactionaries taking over the conservative movement and especially the alt-right, a movement that Yiannopoulos had become a leader for through his provocative, extreme work at Breitbart.
Julia and her mom have taken part in some activism before, including at a Women’s March last month. But when Yiannopoulos was invited to talk at CPAC, this Canadian teenager saw an opening. She worked to get his speech canceled — and she won.
-snip-
The teen was moved to dig up footage on Yiannopoulos when she heard that he’d been invited to speak at the highest profile gathering of conservatives each year in America, the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). She defines herself as “very socially liberal,” but leans right on economics and foreign policy. Yiannopoulos, who has built his personal brand on anti-Muslim, anti-feminism, and general bigotry, exemplifies the place where she doesn’t believe the conservative movement should go.
“I see Milo as this embodiment of the awfulness you see over the past few years with the general tilt of millennial conservatism,” said the teen. “It’s diverged from this traditional conservatism so much. You’ve seen it essentially become full of awfulness and all about attacking the left and not about actual principles. It has nothing to do with conservative ideology so much as it has with opposing the leftists, SJWs, and so on and so forth.”
Within days of his old statements coming to light, Yiannopoulos lost his spot at CPAC, his book deal, and his job at the ultra-conservative website Breitbart.
I am keeping the teen’s name and social media accounts out of the story because of her and her parents’ request to protect her safety, and will only refer to her as “Julia.” But we have confirmed her identity and her communications with the conservative blog that resurfaced the Yiannopoulos tape for a wide audience.
-snip-
Julia closely follows political news from her home in Canada, with a deep interest in American politics. She has been particularly alarmed by the recent rise of Yiannopoulos and others like him. So as soon as she heard Yiannopoulos would speak at CPAC, she was appalled.
Then an old moment popped in her head. She remembered hearing an obscure podcast, the Drunken Peasants, in which Yiannopoulos, responding to a video by YouTube pundit Kevin Logan, defended the idea of “13-year-olds” having sex with “older men,” arguing that child molestation provided a “sort of ‘coming of age’ relationship” for teenagers.
Her memory was right. She found the July 2016 clip.
She didn’t think she’d have much luck spreading the news herself with her small Twitter following, so she contacted a conservative outlet to get the story out. She figured a liberal outlet would have less credibility among CPAC followers.
She landed on the previously not-very-well-known conservative blog Reagan Battalion, which, after a bit of back and forth, tweeted out the video — leading not just to CPAC canceling Yiannopoulos’s speech, but to Simon & Schuster pulling his already controversial book deal and his resignation from Breitbart.
-snip-
The teen’s mom couldn’t have been more proud of her kid, initially contacting Vox because she said her daughter’s story deserves more attention. She told me that the Canadian family is “more libertarian than anything,” but they’re nonetheless “devastated to see that Orange Julius win.” And in particular, they’re dismayed by reactionaries taking over the conservative movement and especially the alt-right, a movement that Yiannopoulos had become a leader for through his provocative, extreme work at Breitbart.
Julia and her mom have taken part in some activism before, including at a Women’s March last month. But when Yiannopoulos was invited to talk at CPAC, this Canadian teenager saw an opening. She worked to get his speech canceled — and she won.
-snip-
Brava, Julia!
10 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
unless, of course, they weren't 100% for real 
